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At the outset it might be well to define the issues under discussion. My thumbnail definition of psychotherapy is: Psychotherapy is a process which has as its goal the acquisition of versatility. This definition derives from the recognition that a neurotic pattern is characterized by repetitive, compulsive manifestations, which, although they may have been adaptive at one point in the individual's life, have become outdated and are often inappropriate, archaic, and self-defeating in the here and now.
The classic definition of health as the ability to love and the ability to work will suffice as a starting point for our discussion of the overall situation that therapy proposes to accomplish.
A quintessential dimension of psychoanalytic psychotherapy consists in the recognition of unconscious motivation founded on transference and resistance. Transference can be simply understood as the repetition of unconscious patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior toward significant others in the present. Resistance is also simply defined as the avoidance of certain ideas, feelings, and behavior because of unconscious fear and conflict.
The unique dimensions of psychoanalysis is not that it employs transference and resistance but that it proposes to understand the transference and resistance elements as they operate in the therapeutic situation and in the improvements and setbacks that occur in therapy. Other treatment modalities utilize transference and resistance, but they do not universally require that these attributes be understood.
The Human-Potential Movement is not yet fifteen years old. The man who is credited with initiating it is Michael Murphy, who founded the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, California, in 1962. This movement, which consists of a variety of modalities, has been popular on the West Coast for some years, but it has only recently been popularized in the East. Murphy welcomed all sorts of innovative techniques and practitioners of all persuasions. He gathered a